| #### Chapter 18 |

| #### #### Are the evils in the Universe necessary because it is of later origin than the Higher Sphere? #### Perhaps rather because without evil the All would be incomplete. For most or even all forms of evil serve the Universe- much as the poisonous snake has its use- though in most cases their function is unknown. Vice itself has many useful sides: it brings about much that is beautiful, in artistic creations for example, and it stirs us to thoughtful living, not allowing us to drowse in security. #### If all this is so, then [the secret of creation is that] the Soul of the All abides in contemplation of the Highest and Best, ceaselessly striving towards the Intelligible Kind and towards God: but, thus absorbing and filled full, it overflows- so to speak- and the image it gives forth, its last utterance towards the lower, will be the creative puissance. #### This ultimate phase, then, is the Maker, secondary to that aspect of the Soul which is primarily saturated from the Divine Intelligence. But the Creator above all is the Intellectual-Principle, as giver, to the Soul that follows it, of those gifts whose traces exist in the Third Kind. #### Rightly, therefore, is this Kosmos described as an image continuously being imaged, the First and the Second Principles immobile, the Third, too, immobile essentially, but, accidentally and in Matter, having motion. #### For as long as divine Mind and Soul exist, the divine Thought-Forms will pour forth into that phase of the Soul: as long as there is a sun, all that streams from it will be some form of Light. ####  |